Illustrated by Edward A. Wilson. Musical arrangements by Christopher Thomas.

A combined edition of two earlier works by Frank Shay (1888–1954): American Sea Songs and Chanteys (1948) and A Sailor’s Treasury (1951).

American Sea Songs and Chanteys

78 songs divided into: Chanteys, Forecastle Songs, Wardroom Ballads, and Miscellaneous Songs and Ballads. Originally published in 1924 under the title Iron Men and Wooden Ships.

A Sailor’s Treasury

Three sections: “Seeing Things at Sea” (myths, superstitions, and weather lore), “The Ship and the Company She Keeps” (customs, traditions, legends, and yarns), and “Salty Speech” (cries, epithets, gripes, and maxims).

Shay heard his first shanty in 1915 while serving as a foremast hand aboard the tanker Standard. The ship caught fire and lost power off the Yucatan peninsula, and all work had to be done by hand. The crew struggled to handle the heavy towropes of a rescuing ship. “Work was going poorly until a shipmate sounded off with ‘Whiskey for my Johnny.’ The song brought immediate results and others were broken out, mostly in fragments. By the time the Standard made port I had a small collection of the old chanteys: subsequent voyages increased my repertory.”

Shay acknowledged many who assisted with the collection, and credited Joanna Carver Colcord‘s Songs of American Sailormen and Whall’s Sea Songs and Shanties in particular.